


Soulmates are Inconvenient

by Dragomir



Series: Soulmates are Inconvenient [1]
Category: Warcraft (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Minor Injuries, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-06-22
Packaged: 2018-07-16 09:12:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7261930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragomir/pseuds/Dragomir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Khadgar is five, his older brother gets <i>The Words</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [Soulmates are Inconvenient 灵魂的弱点](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7272265) by [Augathra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Augathra/pseuds/Augathra)



> The child abuse tag is there because the Kirin Tor are dicks. There's nothing graphic and it's got one line, but I feel like it should be tagged anyways.

When Khadgar is five, his older brother gets _The Words_.   _The Words_ are apparently Very Important, because Mother and Father both coo over them.  Father thinks the inky black words, curling around the length of his older brother’s forearm, are for someone rich. They are Very Good.  Khadgar says they don’t look so special, and Father sighs like he always does when Khadgar is being ‘difficult’.

Father explains what _The Words_ are, and Khadgar nods because Father is trying to be patient and is explaining things.

Khadgar gets in trouble later when he steals Father’s inkpot and writes words on his arms.

\- o - o -

When Khadgar is six, he lights his brother on fire.

As the mage from the Kirin Tor prepares to take him away to Dalaran, Father pulls him aside.  This might be an honor, but Khadgar is cursed and he will never get his _Words_.  Even though Father hugs him, like he does when he is frustrated but trying to be understanding of his difficult son, Khadgar starts crying.

He cries for a week.

\- o - o -

When Khadgar is eleven, he becomes the Guardian Initiate.

This is a Very Important Thing, and all Khadgar can think of is how he would rather have _The Words_ instead.  The pit of dread pooling in his stomach only grows worse when he realizes that he will not be allowed to have friends anymore.  Attachments are weakness, and weakness is not something a Guardian Initiate should cultivate.

When Khadgar is eleven, _The Words_ appear on his skin. They wrap around his upper forearm in a snaky black rope, blocky letters with jagged tips.  Khadgar reads them, dutifully, and wonders…

He shows them to the mage in charge of the apprentices and, eyes full of angry tears, demands to know why his soulmate hates him.

The words _What are you doing in my city, spell-chucker?_ stare accusingly up at both of them.  The mage pats his head and sighs.  It is the sigh that says they are trying to be patient, even though he is being ‘difficult’.

He is taken to the healers, and they burn the words off his arm.  Attachments are weakness, and the Guardian Initiate cannot cultivate weakness.

The words reappear later that evening, scrawling across his collarbone.

Khadgar does not tell anyone.

\- o - o -

When Khadgar is seventeen, he lets two of the younger apprentices sleep in his room.  They spend most of the night crying and nursing healing burns where once, they had had their words.  Attachments are weakness, and mages cannot be weak.

Khadgar packs a bag and leaves Dalaran the next night.

He does not look back.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Perhaps, then, Anduin Lothar is meant for greater things than mere _words_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since y'all are so nice, here's a second chapter.

Anduin Lothar is fifteen years old.

Taria has _The Words_ scrawled across her skin in an elegant, refined hand that Father dismisses as too feminine. But he still nods approvingly when he sees them.

Anduin does not have any. Father clicks his tongue in disappointment and talks about the shame of being without _The Words._

He is fifteen, and there is no one to match his soul.

\- o – o -

Anduin Lothar is sixteen, and his best friends have their words, scrawled across their skin in inky black spirals. Or rather… _Llane_ has his words, scrawled across the top of his arm in messy loops, a compliment to Taria’s too-feminine words along the underside of her arm. Anduin will not be the one to break the news to their father that Taria’s match is the _prince_.

He rubs his hands together when Llane chatters excitedly about meeting his match, and expresses disgust with the whole business. He has no words. They are _useless_.

Medivh looks up, halfway through the motion of rubbing an old burn that trails down from his shoulder. For a bare second, the young Guardian looks impossibly sad. And then the look is gone.

Perhaps, then, Anduin Lothar is meant for greater things than mere _words_.

\- o – o -

He is eighteen, and Father throws him out of the house, with a threat to disown him.

A love-match, a bond born outside of _The Words_ is unacceptable and abhorrent. Anduin Lothar is not allowed to return home, but Cally, his beloved Cally… She has no words scrawled on her skin either.

Perhaps, then, he hopes, _this_ is why he has no words scratched onto his flesh. He is meant for Cally, and she for him, and their lack of _The Words_ proves it. They do not need silly, childish scribbles to tell them _that_.

\- o – o -

He is nineteen, and alone.

Cally is dead. Llane’s father is dead. There are hundreds of dead trolls at Stormwind’s gate.

His son…

He does not want his son. He does not want the impending lonliness that he will be doomed to, all for a lack of those cursed words. He cannot bring himself to look at Callan. He drinks more than is proper, and his sister – his cursed sister with feminine black words looping along her arm – clicks her tongue at him in disappointment.

He is nineteen, and a cloud of impending doom hangs over him.

\- o – o -

Anduin Lothar is thirty, and _The Words_ appear.

They burn into his hand, scrawling in hurried, spiky scratches, almost too small to read. When Callan – Callan, his son, who looks so much like Cally it is like a physical weapon thrust into his heart – asks what _Shalaros_ means, Anduin throws a bottle at him. He regrets that action, when fear flickers across Callan’s young, open face.

Anduin does not want these words. He does not want this life, or someone thrust upon him. He was Cally back. He wants the certainty of a love-match he created.

Callan fetches his aunt, and Anduin wilts under his sister’s glare. He shows her the small letters scratched across his palm – the writing of an academic, of someone in a hurry to copy the pages of a book.

Taria hugs him, tightly. She is smiling, but it hurts her.

Anduin Lothar would give up _The Words_ if only he could have his wife instead.

\- o – o -

Anduin Lothar is forty-two years old when the world falls apart.

A boy with a sweet, open face and large brown eyes throws a spell at him.

His palm burns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Anduin...

**Author's Note:**

> So it's mostly canon-compliant. Hit me up on [tumblr](dragormir.tumblr.com).


End file.
